As one of the less than half a dozen air forces of the world which have remained independent from the very birth, the Indian Air Force has rendered a yeoman service in the defence of the country over the past seventy-five years, both in war as well as in peace. It was created as an army co-operation force for support to the ground forces, and that too largely in the role of visual reconnaissance and limited close air support to the ground columns against tribals in the North West Frontier Province of India, where its breakaway entity–Pakistan Air Force — continues to use its modern aircrafts for a similar purpose, though against the jihadi fighters that its army had created.
We need to see the challenge of declining force levels not only as a challenge of restoring it, but also as an opportunity to shape the IAF for the coming decades and its operational challenges.
As part of the imperial policy of the British, the main and “strategic” role was retained with the twenty squadrons of the Royal Air Force equipped with bombers, fighters and transport aircrafts. Time and again the young leaders of the fledgling air force would break out of the role and mission straitjacket.
The most remarkable demonstration of the role expansion that came very early in the history of the Air Force was the bombing of the Japanese (army and navy) air force on 3rd February, 1942. No. 1 AC Squadron (the “AC” stood for army cooperation) was moved right across the country from Peshawar in the West, all the way to the eastern border of Burma (now Myanmar). Soon after it landed at Tongou airfield, Japanese bombers came over to hit the airfield, but did not achieve any damage. No. 1 Squadron, led by young Squadron Leader “Jumbo” Majumdar responded by bombing the Japanese air force at their base in Thailand: an operation that was strategic in concept and execution, and far beyond the designated role of the solitary squadron of the IAF at that time.
From then onward started the doctrinal/conceptual dualities that have stayed with the Air Force till recently. But inspite of a strategic role repeatedly played by the Air Force, the dominant thinking, largely under the influence of the ground forces, perceived the role of the Air Force as “tactical”. We even undertook a large number of unnecessary support missions costly in lives and aircraft during the 1971 war in support of the support thesis.
The combat role of air power very early on had settled down to defining it across the world by the type of platform: Bombers carried out the strategic role, while fighter (and later fighter-bombers which acquired the capabilities to drop small payload of bombs) aircrafts were considered to play a tactical role. But we have known that even transport aircraft have created strategic effects. For example, if the IAF Dakotas transport aircraft had not landed the army troops in Srinagar on the morning of 27th October, 1947, the history of J&K and the sub-continent may well have been different.
Similarly, Air Commodore Mehar Singh’s famous landing of troops on a makeshift landing ground at Leh with troops across uncharted mountains on 24th May, 1948 altered the war. The IL-76 landing of troops in the Maldives in support of the government threatened by terrorists in 1988 is another example among many over the past six decades.
“¦air defence of India is the unambiguous responsibility of the Indian Air Force. The Army did not have much difficulty with this role since it would hopefully provide protection from aerial attacks by a hostile air force.
Ground forces have historically seen their role as the primary expression of a nation’s military power (the only exception perhaps was the army in the UK where the Navy was the senior service), and hence the function of every other military component was one that “supported” the war winning role of the ground forces. The introduction of nuclear armed bombers only reinforced the prevailing belief. And since we did not possess nuclear bombers, it was assumed that the main role of the IAF was tactical, and essentially for close air support of the army within sight of the ground troops.
At the same time it was clearly understood that the air defence of India is the unambiguous responsibility of the Indian Air Force. The Army did not have much difficulty with this role since it would hopefully provide protection from aerial attacks by a hostile air force. But there are three aspects of air defence that started to influence the thinking about the Air Force: (i) it soon resulted in ground-based terminal defence as the main means of air defence, (ii) the concern that we did not have adequate capability to defend our cities against the threat of Chinese bombing in 1962 resulted in a decision by default not to employ the combat component of the IAF in the war, and (iii) with the introduction of man-portable surface to air guided missiles in large quantities with the Army, the ground forces acquired a very substantive capability for ground-based terminal defence.
It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, an influential section of the Air Force leadership did not wish to pursue aerial refuelling and/or airborne early warning systems (with preference accorded to ground-based radars)! But even greater changes are to be expected in the coming years and decades. But it is useful to recall a seminal RAND study on the IAF in early 1990s that concluded that:1
“At least from the outside, it appears that the air force did not take the initiative in pushing concepts of air power or in preparing an air plan for the defence of India.”
The Air Force did bring out its doctrine; but it dealt more with the attributes of air power and the employment in air campaigns rather than deal with the core issue: the theory of air power and the purpose of the Indian Air Force. But a lot of things have changed since then, in particular what I have referred to as the real RMA: the Revolution in Military Aviation (more of it later). In just a decade after the doctrine was published, while there is greater articulation of “strategic reach”, it is not yet clear what would be the purpose the Air Force sought to achieve through its strategic reach? This goes back into the theory of air power as it has to be applied to our context, and the re-examination of the very purpose of the Air Force.
Nevertheless, technological advances have made it increasingly possible to execute precision strike from extended ranges without visually acquiring the target as long as accurate intelligence is available.
The shift in semantics, however, indicates that the role and missions of the IAF are changing. That this is happening in spite of the apparent paradox of expanding strategic reach and a rapid contraction of the combat force (from 39 to possibly as low as 27 squadrons by 2010) poses challenges of its own, not the least being those of resources and the time horizon in which they could be converted into capability. On the other hand, this makes it all the more important to relate the concept of strategic reach to the environment in which we would have to operate in peace and war, to the effects that would be sought and hence the capabilities that would be necessary to achieve those effects. In other words, we need to see the challenge of declining force levels not only as a challenge of restoring it, but also as an opportunity to shape the IAF for the coming decades and its operational challenges.
Our operational environment has been nuclearised for more than two decades.2 Its fundamental impact is that conventional war will have to remain limited in scope and effect, if the risk of escalation to nuclear weapons is to be avoided. In other words, the goal of a “decisive military victory” especially on land and at sea is passant. As it is, macro trends in geopolitics indicate that territory and its capture and occupation, which has historically been the primary object of wars and hence the central role of ground forces, is no longer a viable objective. Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 was the last such war with known consequences. But the United States failed to learn the crucial lesson despite of the fact that it had employed alternate available means to influence the behaviour of Iraq, that is, a combination of economic sanctions and military containment from the air through the No-Fly-Zones and 300,000 air strikes during the five years before launching a military invasion.
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It does not imply that the ground forces have become obsolete. The effect sought to be achieved from the application of ground forces has been changing. The reality is that while capture and occupation of territory in the historical sense is no longer a viable option, the capture of small pockets of territory has become far more important for political-psychological reasons, essentially to be used for negotiating changes in policy. Wars have been fought in the past to change the behaviour of the target country, which required occupation of the capital and even a change of regime, a la Iraq in 2003.
Wars have been fought in the past to change the behaviour of the target country, which required occupation of the capital and even a change of regime”¦
This in turn required the enemy’s military forces to be first defeated decisively. But in a decolonised, increasingly inter-dependent world of today, the process of influencing the behaviour of another state is achieved through complex ways that ideally combine diplomacy, political action, economic measures and the discrete use of military power.
These, and other, mega trends have led to the change in warfare, limiting the prospect to local-border wars, that by themselves are unable to produce a decisive effect. The classical role of military power of applying punitive force to achieve political effect has not changed. What is changing is how that is to be achieved. This is why the role of the air forces has been changing; and some would even say, that is why there is a renewed effort to limit the influence and role of air forces (like the Indian Army chief was reported to have argued)3 and/or increasingly make it subordinate to the ground forces, whether through structural changes (like the CDS) or procedural impact (like the opposition to Aerospace Command in IAF).
Strategic Reach and Effect
The second major issue that we would like to address is that in an era of “effect-based-operations”, where effect is more important than the traditional approach of destruction as the objective, how is a strategic effect to be achieved? It is here that changes in technology have been providing the solution. The Revolution in Military Aviation has led to air-to-surface warfare, shifting from the traditional “line of sight” operations to BVR (beyond visual range) warfare. Air-to-air warfare had become all weather BVR combat with great precision soon after the Second World War.
Regardless of the contentions on the ownership issues, the reality is that IAF needs to build and exploit space assets and capabilities in space if it has to take full advantage of its inherent attributes and modern technology to function as a modern air force.
Air-to-surface warfare was however limited to line-of-sight operations. The ground target had to be visually located, identified, acquired in synergy with the weapon capability and weapon launched by the high speed attacking aircraft. Inevitably, this resulted in the attacking aircraft, mostly the old fighter-bomber, now termed a combat aircraft, over-flying the target exposing it to ground-based air defence weaponry. This in turn increased the premium on ground-based air defences and offensive support to land forces from the air became less effective and more costly. Nevertheless technological advances have made it increasingly possible to execute precision strikes from extended ranges without visually acquiring the target, as long as accurate intelligence is available. This has made it possible to transform air-to-surface attacks from line-of-sight to BVR warfare. And this points to the direction in which the IAF would have to increasingly invest in building future capabilities.
These developments have already led to weapon delivery for air-to-surface strikes being carried out from altitudes above the range of air defence weapons. This trend would make ground forces increasingly dependent on air forces, because ground based air defences would lose much of their potency against attacking an aircraft that could launch weapons from well beyond the range of air defence weaponry, and be able to do so with greater accuracy and lethality. The only method of protecting ground forces from hostile air forces would be to rely on air superiority by the own air force. In other words, the IAF would have to ensure that it is able to dominate in the air at an early stage of the war to ensure that ground forces have the freedom of action and protection from the skies. This has two major implications for the future.
First, dominance in the air would require to be included in any peace time plan for future procurement of aircraft and systems (especially with capabilities for airborne early warning and control, electronic warfare, ISR for accurate target intelligence, PGMs, etc.). Given the reality that the force level has already declined, and the costs of modern systems being high, this would require some hard decisions by the defence establishment where priority would have to be accorded to the modernisation and restoration of the force level. Given the rapid and massive modernisation going on in China and Pakistan, the air power balance unfortunately has already shifted against us.
What is perhaps not adequately realised is that the Indian Army, would actually be facing the brunt of the effect of the adverse balance, since it runs the risk of a weakened future air defence, where the ground-based air defence systems may be of little value against hostile aircraft launching weapons outside their range. This problem has already changed the parameters of naval warfare; and it is now changing the nature of warfare on land in our region also. The IAF would no doubt battle it out with the hostile air force; but the effect of reduced ability (due to emaciated force level) would impact the Indian Army much more. This must be given due consideration now, rather than feel sorry later that the IAF was not able to support the ground forces adequately. In fact, the IAF air dominance would help the ground forces to achieve much more, and in lesser time, at lesser costs to the nation.
Second, increasing BVR precision strike capabilities also imply that even well-defended military targets can be located and attacked with greater precision deep inside hostile territory. One can easily identify enemy reserves as a potential priority target system to influence the land battle. Perhaps more important, especially in more ambiguous political conditions (like we found ourselves after the terrorist attack on parliament in December 2001) the challenge would be how to influence the behaviour of the sponsors of terrorism. In other words, punitive air strikes would be necessary to achieve this, which must also ensure that we retain the initiative in any escalation process. This requires capabilities to dominate in the air, and to be able to undertake precision strikes deep inside hostile territory in a manner where any response to the strikes would fail to lead to any advantage to the adversary.
The role and impact of junior leadership in modern warfare has increased enormously in modern warfare. And it is here that we seem to function with major deficit for years and years. This sounds surprising in a country of 1.1 billion.
Strategic reach, therefore, must serve the purpose of an extended range for precision strike. And to maximise the advantages, it must deny any advantage of strategic depth to the other side while exploiting one’s own strategic depth. We have not looked at the factor strategic depth in the past due to a number of reasons. Curiously it has been Pakistan that has expanded its strategic depth by occupying a large part of J&K to its east, and has been trying hard to expand it westward by trying to controlAfghanistan, first through the Mujahideen and later through the Taliban. China has done the same by occupying Tibet and parts of India in Ladakh, while claiming the whole state of Arunachal Pradesh in our northeast.
There are many steps that the IAF can take to rectify this situation now that it is extending its strategic reach. Fundamentally it has to re-orient its strategic posture by altering its deployment spread across the heartland of the country to shift the bulk of its operational bases out of reach of the adversary’s air power, and retaining the current bases as launch/recovery of support missions in case of war.
One aspect not accorded adequate attention is that air forces – and the IAF can be no different – have the ability to exploit the strategic depth (or rather, the strategic height) in the vertical dimension. In fact air forces operate to battle in that domain. That is what the USAF refers to as the “high battle” which extends all the way to space. Regardless of the contentions on the ownership issues, the reality is that IAF needs to build and exploit space assets and capabilities in space if it has to take full advantage of its inherent attributes and modern technology to function as a modern air force. This requires the full support of the other services if they are to be effectively supported from the air, whether directly or indirectly. The example of the US after years of experimentation is of great relevance in this regard. It is indeed surprising that while the nation depends on the military forces and the Air Force for its defence, the Armed Forces seem to be hesitant to build trust among each other in violation of the central principle of the fighting forces that relies on trust in each other as the critical element of success in war and peace.
Human Capital for the Future
Any organisation is only as good as its people; and military forces are even more sensitive to their manpower since they are dealing with matters of survival, not only of their own but chiefly of the nation itself. We pay a lot of attention to the quality of manpower and their training and skills. But we seem to have ignored the issues of sufficient numbers and seem to be perennially short of manpower, especially at the junior leadership levels. In spite of parliamentary committees emphasising over the past quarter century the need to make up the huge deficiencies in the officer cadre of the Indian Army, we seem to be functioning with a nearly 23% shortage at the junior (and cutting edge) of our army officer leadership.
Now we find the defence minister confirming in the parliament last July that IAF is short of 683 pilots. This would amount to as much as 24% shortages. Since the senior ranks get filled up by promotions, obviously such shortages are in the lower ranks which provide both the combat component as well as the battle leadership in any air force. It may be recalled that during World War II Germany (and Japan) started to lose the war once the shortage of pilots started to impact combat capabilities. The role and impact of junior leadership in modern warfare has increased enormously in modern warfare. And it is here that we seem to function with major deficit for years and years. This sounds surprising in a country of 1.1 billion. But the reality is that this is a failure of planning.
Since the senior ranks get filled up by promotions, obviously such shortages are in the lower ranks which provide both the combat component as well as the battle leadership in any air force.
Hence the question needs to be raised whether the conclusions and recommendations of the Permanent Manpower Policy Committee set by Air Chief Marshal PC Lal in early 1972 that forecast shortages of pilots beginning by mid-1980s have been carried out? Going by the general trends of instituting ad-hoc measures based on available assets rather than long-term planning to create assets required for a steady state strength, it appears that adequate capacity to train sufficient pilots have not been created. The comfort level of low pilot strength with not particularly satisfactory serviceability of aircrafts in a force that has declined well below the authorised strength may hide the deficit in combat capability. The case of the AJT (Advanced Jet Trainer) required as replacement by 1972 but yet to land on IAF airfields is symptomatic, in that training patterns and syllabi were modified instead of creating adequate capacities. Even the number of (66) aircrafts being acquired is less than half the number of similar sized air forces that of the UK and France use!
Training of future pilots in particular and leaders in general, represents one of the biggest challenges that the Air Force confronts while it prepares itself for a much expanded role in the future. The solution does not lie in simply holding back officers from leaving the service once they have completed the primary flying tenure (averaging around 15 years for fighter pilots and 20-odd for transport crews). What is needed is to enhance the capacity for training service pilots. Studies in late 1960s had indicated that this approach is far more cost-effective than simply adding age and rank. The lesson from China, which has laid down much lower retiring ages for military command, provides an idea of the trends.
Notes
- George K. Tanham & Marcy Agmon, The Indian Air Force: Trends and Prospects, (Santa Monica, RAND, 1995) p. 42.
- Pakistan had tested a nuclear device (a Chinese design) in 1983 and acquired nuclear weapons by 1987. China had built up its nuclear arsenal since 1964.
- See The Times of India.
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